Chapter 8 - The Navy Yard Massacre
Midnight came and went.
The grandfather clock in the estate’s grand foyer struck 1:00 a.m.
The snow had turned into a howling blizzard, rattling the heavy French doors of the library where I paced the Persian rug, clutching Dante’s iron key against my chest until the metal bruised my skin.
Rosa sat in the armchair by the fire, her rosary beads clicking rhythmically between her trembling fingers, her lips moving in silent Italian prayers.
Suddenly, the estate’s exterior floodlights flickered and died.
The room plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the dying orange embers of the fireplace.
A sharp, high-pitched siren wailed from the security console in the corridor.
ALERT: PERIMETER BREACH - SECTOR FOUR.
The library doors burst open. Marco stood in the doorway, fully clad in black tactical gear, an assault rifle held across his chest. His face was bleeding from a shrapnel graze along his jaw.
“Marco!” I cried out. “Dante? Where is Dante?!”
“The Navy Yard was a diversion!” Marco barked, his voice tight with adrenaline. “Moretti didn't go to Brooklyn! He sent a dummy convoy and led forty Russian mercenaries directly here to Bedford! They cut the power lines at the main road!”
My blood ran cold. “Dante isn't at the docks?”
“Dante figured out the feint thirty minutes ago,” Marco said, grabbing my arm, pulling me toward the hidden bookcase passage that led to the subterranean fallout shelter. “He’s racing back on the Saw Mill Parkway, but the roads are impassable with the blizzard! We have to get you into the vault now!”
A deafening explosion rocked the front terrace.
The shockwave blew out the reinforced glass of the grand solarium down the hall, showering the hardwood floors in crystalline shards. Automatic gunfire detonated across the courtyard—the rapid, staccato chatter of Kalashnikovs answered by the disciplined bursts of Castellano rifles.
“Down!” Marco roared, shoving Rosa and me into the narrow concrete stairwell behind the bookcase.
He slammed the steel blast door shut, locking the pneumatic deadbolts from the inside.
“Stay here!” Marco commanded, his eyes wide. “Do not open this door for anyone except Dante or me!”
Before I could answer, Marco racked his weapon and sprinted back up the stairs toward the sounds of slaughter.
I stood in the dim, emergency-lit concrete bunker, listening to the muffled roar of war raging above our heads. Grenades rattled the foundation. Concrete dust drifted down like snow from the exposed ceiling pipes.
Ten minutes passed.
Then fifteen.
Gradually, the gunfire slowed. The heavy explosions ceased, replaced by the occasional, single pop of execution shots in the courtyard.
Then came the heavy, dragging footsteps on the other side of the blast door.
Someone was scratching at the steel.
I grabbed a heavy iron crowbar from the emergency tool rack on the wall, holding it with both hands, my heart pounding so violently against my ribs I thought my chest would rupture.
Clack. Hiss.
The pneumatic deadbolts groaned. The heavy steel door swung inward.
A figure collapsed across the threshold, hitting the concrete with a sickening thud.
“Marco!” I gasped, dropping the bar and falling to my knees beside him.
Marco was drenched in blood. Three gunshot wounds perforated his tactical vest, dark red bubbling from his lips. He looked up at me through half-lidded eyes, weakly reaching out to push me back.
“Mia…” Marco wheezed, coughing up blood. “Moretti… he breached the house… he’s right behind me…”
A cold, mocking laugh echoed down the concrete stairwell.
Salvatore Moretti stepped through the blast door, a smoking chrome-plated .45 clutched in his gloved hand. Behind him stood two burly Russian shooters, their tactical masks spattered with crimson.
“Well, well,” Sal sneered, his broken nose crooked and grotesque beneath the emergency lights. “The runaway waitress. All this blood… all this money… for a little piece of garbage that Marcus couldn't even train properly.”
I stood up slowly.
I didn't cower. I didn't hide behind Rosa, who was weeping in the corner.
Two years of living in terror had burned out of me. Standing over Marco’s bleeding body, looking into the eyes of the monster who had brought war to our sanctuary, an icy, diamond-hard resolve took over.
“You’re too late, Sal,” I said, my voice steady, devoid of any tremor. “Dante is already here.”
Sal laughed—a wet, hysterical sound. “Castellano’s car crashed three miles south in a snowbank! He’s walking through a blizzard on foot! By the time he gets here, I’ll have your head in a bowling bag on Judge Sterling’s desk!”
Sal raised the .45, pointing the barrel straight between my eyes.
A sudden, thunderous blast ripped through the bunker.
It didn't come from Sal’s gun.
The concrete wall behind the two Russian mercenaries blew inward in a catastrophic explosion of pulverized stone and high-explosive breaching charges.
The two mercenaries were blown into bloody pieces by the blast.
Through the roaring dust and acrid sulfur smoke, a figure walked out of the wreckage like an avenging demon emerging from the underworld.
Dante.
His coat was gone. His white dress shirt was shredded, soaked in his own blood and the blood of his enemies. In his right hand, he held a heavy tactical combat shotgun. His face was blackened with soot, his dark eyes burning with a lethal, primeval fury that made the breath freeze in Sal Moretti’s lungs.
Sal spun around, his gun shaking violently as he tried to aim through the smoke.
“Dante—!” Sal shrieked.
BOOM.
Dante fired from the hip.
The blast tore through Sal Moretti’s right shoulder, lifting the sixty-year-old capo off his feet and slamming him violently against the blast door. Sal’s weapon flew from his shattered hand, clattering across the concrete.
Sal hit the floor, screaming in agony, clutching the bloody ruin of his arm.
Dante didn't stop. He crossed the distance in two predatory strides, kicked Sal’s gun into the corner, and drove his heavy combat boot down onto Sal’s throat, pinning him to the floor.
The bunker went completely silent, save for Sal’s choked, wet gurgles beneath Dante’s heel.
Dante racked another shell into the shotgun chamber with a sharp, metallic CLACK.
He looked down at Sal Moretti with pure, unadulterated disgust.
“I told you what would happen if you touched what was mine, Salvatore,” Dante whispered.
“Dante… please…” Sal wheezed, blood pouring down his chin. “The Commission… mercy…”
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“There is no Commission,” Dante replied coldly. “There is only me.”
He pulled the trigger.
